he saw children choking on gas. what action will the u.s. take? >> that same question looms over trump's biggest world leader yet. he will sit down with china's president. what will he get done on trade? the big question is north korea. how will those two men agree on a response to the north korea aggression? busy day on day 77 of the donald trump presidency. let's start with cnn's joe johns live at the white house. >> reporter: good morning, chris. a defining moment for this president and this administration administration. as a candidate, donald trump slammed china for the trade policies and promised to win at the negotiation table. now with hot spots around the world in crisis, he sit down face-to-face with the leader of the country he attacked on the campaign trail.

>> these heinous actions by the assad regime cannot be tolerated. >> reporter: donald trump confronting crises during a week of high stakes diplomacy. including the meeting today with xi jinping. >> my attitude toward syria and assad changed. >> reporter: the changes in action over the chemical attack perpetrated by bashar al assad against his own people. >> when you kill innocent children. innocent babies. that crosses many, many lines. i do change and i am flexible. i'm proud of that flexibility. that attack on children yesterday had a big impact on me. >> reporter: a significant shift for a president who in the past has advocated against intervention in syria after similar attacks. >> we're supposed to get

involved with syria. i would say stay out. >> reporter: and fought for a ban on syrian refugees. >> i'm putting people on notice that are coming from syria as part of the mass migration. if i win, they're going back. >> reporter: united nations ambassador nikki haley warning the u.s. may take unilateral action whether others don't respond. >> when the united nations doesn't act in its duties, there are times in the life of states that we are compelled to take our own action. >> reporter: a starkly different tone from her comments days ago when she told reporters our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting assad out. those comments and others from secretary of state rex tillerson bringing rebuke. >> the remarks we are no longer going after assad, i believe

caused assad to do what he did. >> i don't think it is a coincidence. >> reporter: ambassador haley now slamming russia for the assad regime. >> how many more children have to die before russia cares? >> reporter: as president trump condemns the kremlin, but telling the new york times, i think it is a sad day for russia because they're aligned. north korea's latest ballistic missile launch presepti-sepsent test for trump when he meets with the chinese president. >> we have a big problem. >> reporter: china's role in confronting the north korean nuclear threat is a main point of conversation during the two-day summit. which the president acknowledged will be difficult. particularly after his routine criticism of china on the campaign trail. >> we cannot continue to allow china to rape our country.

that's what they're doing. >> reporter: the white house will be moving on quickly after the departure of that controversial aid from the principle's committee of the national security council. steve bannon. acknowledging the problems be around the world are now the president's to solve. alisyn. >> joe, thank you. we are following breaking news. turkey's justice minister says autopsy results show chemicals were used that killed 86 people and injured hundreds more in syria. we want to warn you the images of the aftermath are disturbing. emergency workers took 30 victims to turkey. three victims have since died. some killed include young children. turkey blames syrian leader bashar al assad's regime for carrying out this chemical attack. let's start with these developments in syria. the pivot by the white house.

what will it mean? this major meeting with the president of the united states and the head of china. we have a great panel. cnn analyst david gregory and maggie haberman. also joining us, national security correspondent david sanger. he has a piece on this pivopivo. david gregory, when we call it a pivot, trump in 2013, when they had that chemical attack which killed many more people and many more children than now, he said don't go into syria. now he sees it differently. >> the view from inside the oval office out as opposed to outside in is a lot different for anybody who assumes the office. this becomes a test of moral leadership for any president of the united states. a moment when i think he or she realizes only the united states can lead in such a way that can

make a real difference. both with military might and with diplomatic might. here is president has changed his view. he is using very sloppy language just like president obama did, but taking it to another level. talking about crossing all kinds of lines for him. suggesting he is preparing to take some type of military action without it being clear how he would do and with whom he might do it. at the same time, if you are listening to ambassador haley at the united nations, putting the united states on a collision course and given everything trump said with russia which does so much to prop up assad and has for a long time and has military assets in place over syria just as the u.s. is targeting isis. >> david, i'm reading your piece on the president's pivot. he spells out his point of view. that is seeing all of the h

hideous images on the news. this got his attention in a way it hadn't before. is it clear to you what his plan is now? >> i think what we have seen here is a president who is watching these images as david said from the oval office instead of from trump tower. these were horrific and what happened is a huge international tragedy. it is no larger an international tragedy when we saw chemical weapons used in 2013. it was at that moment that mr. trump was arguing that the united states as you heard in the introduction should stay out of syria. what was missing yesterday was any description of what his strategic objective would be if he went in. there is a reason that president obama did not follow through with his threat to go bomb

assad. whether you think that was the right decision or wrong decision and i think it had a lot of bad consequences for the united states following on. what led him to the decision was he couldn't figure out what happened the day after you did the bombing. so instead, it led to a negotiation which trump has not referred to yet. they got much, but not all of the chemical weapons out of syria. i think we are missing in the press conference was any description of what his ultimate objective here is. is it to protect the population? is it to topple the regime? is it to somehow keep an alliance together that would go in and confront the russians? would he join the russians? the russia issue is front and center next week because secretary of state rex tillerson

is going to moscow for what will be the first face-to-face encounter with president putin with anybody in the trump cabinet. >> maggie, we have the overall experience is talking tough and acting on it. granted. he has a built in plus and built in minus that obama did not have. when obama went to congress, he crossed the red line, congress had no desire to have that happen. now republicans and democrats are calling on the white house to do more. they have their own menu of options. that's the plus. on the negative side, i'm sad for russia. yes, nikki haley used stronger language. even tillerson said it. until you decide to go after russia hard, not much can get

done. >> my colleague's point, david sanger, we don't have anything clear to know what the president will do. without knowing that, it is impossible to gauge how much of a plus this will become. it is not clear because republicans hold congress and party in power in the white house, that means there is a desire at all. there are so many other issues to tackle. that is one issue. the other issue to your point, when my colleague were talking to the president about syria yesterday and he lingered on the images and seeing them and what the experience of that was like. when we pushed on what does this mean in terms of russia and syria. he seemed unprepared to answer. i don't mean he is not aware of it. he did not want to discuss it beyond muted words of this is a sad day for russia. described it as disappointing.

it is not clear what that means. >> also, maggie, i look at the transcript from your interview, it is by design. i don't talk about what i plan to do militarily. i don't ever te't ever telegrap. >> that is true. some people are not sure which way to go in terms of the question that you raised about he said i don't like to discuss what i'm doing militarily or any ext strategic initiatives. >> now, david gregory, let's look at how this pivoting on the difference of talk and action will manifest in what is the bigge biggest moment internationally when trump meets with china's leader. tough talk during the campaign on china. said they were raping the united

states on currency manipulation. something has to come out of it. it is a test. >> it is certainly a test. you have all of this rhetoric from candidate trump that was not measured that he now has to try to soften a little bit and put in the package of what he wants to achieve. david brought this up before. you are ready to have a big meeting with the most important partner and adversary. the language on china gets subtle. what do you want to walk away with? what are you trying to achieve? you have an issue on economic matters and trade. you have presence in the south china sea. you have the fact that by pulling out of an asian trade pact, china has room to negotiate deals. on north korea, what do you want china to do? what is china prepared to do? what will you do unilaterally as a new administration?

there is no doubt that trump's national security team are saying what are the options if i want to force the issue. who can we work with. china is the key player. he set himself up to say i'm going to fix this problem on north korea. and because of what rex tillerson said, we are not negotiating with the people. we will have to give on one of those two things. it is not like other presidents haven't been here and grappled with the difficult issue when you are dealing with instability and leadership in north korea. >> david sanger. what are you keeping an eye out for today? do you think president trump can extract promise from china in dealing with north korea? >> i'm sure that by the time this summit meeting is over, the chinese will have promised to fully implement united nations resolutions and crack down more on sanctions on north korea.

i'm also confident that will not do the trick. if the chinese were going to solve the north korean problem for the united states, they would have done it 20 years ago. they chosen not to for a specific reason. they fear the instability on the korean peninsula. the collapse of kim jong-un's regime. the movement of the american and south korean troops up to the chinese border more than they fear the current status quo. so you will hear, i think, president xi argue that the united states should go back into negotiations and we should have talks. they should do nothing precipitous. the argument in washington is you don't want to do that until you got significant leverage. when they did the north korean review, just reached an interim conclusion ahead of the summit, it called for massive increase in military and economic

pressure and then perhaps engagement with north korea later on. by the way, not what secretary tillerson talked about when he was in seoul two weeks ago. he said we would not negotiate with the north koreans until they gave up all their weapons which doesn't seem likely. >> quickly -- >> that's the interesting dance. >> the other issue with china is the movement of north koreans. any greater freedom in north korea or relaxation of relationships has the potential of a huge flow of people going into china from north korea which is something the previous administrations have dealt with and china doesn't want as reality. >> panel, thank you for the comments. maggie's big interview is making headlines on many fronts. the president suggests that susan rice may have committed a crime. what is his proof? the president's answer next.

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learn more at cancercenter.com/experts okay. president trump making a strong allegation of susan rice's

unmasking in intelligence reports. in an interview with the new york times, the president said quote i think it's going to be the biggest story. it's such an important story for our country andme the world. reporter glenn thrush asked do you think she commit aid crime. he answered do i think? yes. i think. we have maggie haberman with us as well as david gregory and david sanger. >> we went to talk about infrastructure. this was scheduled a week earlier. he began by talking about susan rice. >> he took that to mean infrastructure of political? >> it has many mention. we talked about neil gorsuch. we talked about democrats. he went from that to susan rice

camera. he talked about more there. hinted things we didn't know. we asked what those were. he couldn't say. he did have something in there. if you look at the transcript, he said there are other people involved. he hinted there will be other names. we asked if he would declassify. he said he would not talk about that. >> in reading the transcript, you pressed him. what evidence can you give us. he paradoxically said he wants you to cover it more, but he won't give you more information. >> we pointed that out. the times had covered the story. if they provided us more information, we would have written about it earlier. that said, susan rice, it is important to say, said through a spokesperson she would not d dignfy this with an answer.

she did acknowledge this week in an interview with andrea mitchell, she asked for identity of people on intercepts. that was in the context of other things. and she did nothing wrong. the leak is from unmasking to leaking. the president would not explain what he was talking about. >> this is not new. he has been trying to get away from the russian interference. he sees it with something he has done wrong. he never promised proof. >> we pointed that out. >> this has to include other people. susan rice could not do that herself. there will be a chain. this conversation is taking place in the oval office. there were atmospherics involved here. how many people were there? what was the feel in there? >> it was surreal. when we talkwalked into the ova

office, there are -- trump's office is more grand central station over private. he has an open door policy. a lot of people have walk-in privileges. a number of them. usually it say handful of aides. when walked in and a cast of thousands. somebody said i did not realize who was there. i almost walked into ivanka trump not realizing they was there. there was gary cohen. reid cordish. he works with jared kushner. sean spicer was behind me. at one point, the vice president and reince priebus, chief of staff, walked in together which occurred to me was actually possibly done for effect. glenn and i had done a piece a week ago suggesting that there was some clashing of priebus' aides or allies of his.

>> you think that was the point? >> why they were all there seemed to suggest to me a show of force. keeping the president on message to the extent they could. reminding him the topic. he went off topic. >> before we get to the panel, one more question. what was the mood? what was the president's mood? was he angry? annoy annoyed? >> when we walked in, you both have interviewed him. you know when he is in a defensive posture, he does this. he relaxes and unwinds. he took issue with me on a couple of points. he was upset about certain issues of coverage. we passed through that. essentially he seended up beingn a pretty good mood. he was not rough or hostile. at the outset, he was kucurt.

this is an issue of infrastructure. he talks about that. he cares about that. he cares about tax reform. we asked him about other things. he made news at one point where we asked about the public funding component with estimates of $200 billion to $300 billion. it is a budget buster. he did not explain how it would be paid for. we asked him the last time he rode the subway in new york. he said it was younger going to school. i used to ride between cars and my colleague glenn thrush said you are doing that now politically. >> except for the gang of people. >> that was unusual. >> it is unusual. david gregory. sanger, you are never alone. this sounds like something

different. this is hey, we're unified and we're here. it did not work to keep him on message. >> it is like the marx brothers movie "night at the opera." keep packing people in the room. i think that's a lot of what happens. new administration formulating policy. moving in many directions. not everybody in place. i'm sure that just as a management style, he doesn't mind that chaos. especially when he is creating it. it is interesting, if he would spend more time tweeting about infrastructure, he could create more discipline in the approach and politics. on susan rice, it is important to remember the context. number one, our president was the system one who advanced a conspiracy theory of obama was not a legal citizen and not born in the united states. now he is advancing another conspiracy theory unproven about his predecessor wiretapping him.

all you have to do is to get conservatives riled up from breitbart to capitol hill is a susan rice. it is a complete diversion. the reality is there was some unmasking going on to understand what context there were between the trump campaign and the transition and in the campaign with foreign government folks. people who where there may have been intelligence breached or inappropriately done. president obama could have done more to turn up the heat on this and crackdown on this. he didn't do so because he didn't want to interfere. he earned a lot of misses from the hillary clinton campaign. now, the narrative that the white house wants to sell is it is political spying and interference. there is not evidence of that yet. all he is doing is dangling

things out there. >> david sanger. >> having done interviews with maggie. if i was interviewed by maggie, i would want to have a lot of people in as back-up as well. i see what that is like. what i think is notable about this. what mr. trump does not have a fair number and when maggie and i went in to do interviews on them on foreign policy last year, that's when he can wander off a fair bit. that's when he talked about letting japan and north korea and south korea build nuclear weapons to deal with the north. i think they were engaged right now in trying to keep him moreb too much on what his objectives were. on a point that david made before about susan rice, i think

there would have been a big question here had susan rice not asked what it was -- who it was in the conversations. remember, the obama administration was way behind on the russia investigation. it took nine months between the time the fbi first went to the democratic national committee to ask questions and the time the president was told that the russians had been inside their system. that's a huge amount of time. the president as david suggested waited a long time and really never got his arms around publicly calling the russians out. when you go back into history here, what happened was, susan rice was playing catch up. >> and there is an untold story about how angry you suggest, david gregory, the clintons were and how obama should have advance advanced it. maggie, was bannon in the crowd?

>> he was not. he and steve miller who represent that wing of the white house were not in our interview. >> what did you think of that? >> i noticed the absence because when so many people are in the room, you look when the president is staffing. you notice who is not there. i would not overread it. bannon often comes in and out of meetings. i'm not sure this was one he wanted to be in. it is no secret that he and gary cohen are actually brothers in arms. the infrastructure is gary cohen. >> we heard that steve bannon has what they say a demotion. that hadn't happened yet. >> no, it literally happened five minutes after. >> you reported on the speculation about it some weeks ago. >> we had. my colleague peter baker and i had a role in this.

had reported discussions going on about a revamp and change to that executive order that did the shift. including restoring the downgraded seats. it was not clear what would happen with bannon. that change was expected a week after that report. that was four weeks ago. the president has been chewing on some form of this change and back to older order on the nse almost since the moment he signed the initial executive order. the first about the nse and the travel ban. he was more upset about the blowback over the nse order than he was about the fallout from the executive order and immigration. >> david gregory, do we think that steve bannon has been sidelined? >> appropriately sidelined from the national security council. i can tell you from my c conversations that h.r. mcmaster

was concerned about people excluded and the dni and steve bannon was included in the principles meeting. this sounds like process. this is important in terms of bringing in all of the strains of information for decision making on national security. there is still concern by mcmaster and outside allies of his. the fact that bannon and jared kushner have the innovation group to bleed into national security and foreign policy working on the parallel track. i don't think this story is over. this was certainly a restoration of order. it is a guy siis a good sign to systems in place to work properly. >> david sanger, final word on what we should expect coming out of china? will it meet up to the hype and expectation and end up with result? >> one thing on david's point. you have a national security

council that looks like the institution has traditionally looked like. you have the people coming in to blow up old institutions. what you ended up with is something more like national security council under george h.w. bush. on day one, it will be inconclusive. you will see the chinese offer a lot to the u.s. including investment in the u.s. i'm not sure you will see very much result. it is just a first meeting in a very long relationship. >> david sanger, david gregory, maggie haberman, thank you. we have been talking about syria because of the latest tragic event. cnn is on the frontlines of what is a brutal civil war. talking to survivors of a chemical attack that killed more than 80 people.

the victims in their own words. next. you do all this research

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♪ can i get some help. watch his head. ♪ i'm so happy. ♪ whatever they went through, they went through together. welcome guys. life well planned. see what a raymond james financial advisor can do for you. now to the horror in syria. the trump administration facing a crisis in the wake of the chemical attack that killed more than 80 people. at least 20 of those victims were children. cnn's ben wedeman spoke with survivors of the attack as they were treated across the border in turkey. we want to warn you, these

images are very difficult to watch. >> reporter: it was the latest in a long series of horrors that is the war in syria. early tuesday morning, the town was who canned by explosions. and suddenly there was pandemonium. hundreds and including many children, struggling for breath. foaming at the mouth. what exactly happened tuesday morning isn't clear. the result, however, is. for the lucky who survived like 55-year-old isha now in a turkey hospital, the memory returns. there was an air strike, she says. i saw yellow and blue. we felt dizzy and fainted. ahmed still has trouble breathing or reconciling tuesday's events.

i don't know what happened to my children, he says. turkey keteams in full chemical suits are deployed to wash down those coming to turkey for treatment. a turkish mobile lab heads across the border. 13-year-old, isha's grandson, is back on his feet in the hospital. the trauma has seared his soul. i saw the explosion in front of my grandfathers's house. he recalls. i ran to theirs house barefoot. i saw my grandfather sitting like this suffocated. then i became dizzy. how many of his relatives were killed? 19, he responds.

the syrian civil war is now into it's seventh year. it left hundreds of thousands of people dead. this is not the first chemical attack and it probably won't be the last. all these years, diplomatis and politics have talked and talked, but people continue to die. i'm ben wedeman on the turkey/syrian border. >> anybody with a heart and eyes knows this is horror. this is a latest in the long line of attack just like this. the last in 2013 had more victims that looked and felt like the ones you just saw. it led to nothing by anyone in the international community that had meaningful impact of change. what can be done? let's discuss this. we have cnn chief international correspondent christiane amanpour. the context matters here.

everybody's feeling it right now. we felt it back then. nothing happened. in your opinion, what are the legitimate options on the table for something to be different this time? >> well, you know, everybody has been waiting to see how an immediate foreign policy crisis would affect the trump administration. president trump showed how it affected him to the world yesterday. at the rose garden talking about the babies and children, the women, the civilians, killed in the horrific manner which was an afront on civilians. talking about many lines that crossed. including the red line. he kept doubling down on outrage. he didn't back down when people asked him about it. he kept going on about how bad this was. that in conjunction with the

united nations ambassador said we might have to do something ourselves if the u.n. won't. what the president said all options on the table. secretary of state said there is no doubt that assad pep trarpet this. chris, it is true we have seen this before. the one in 2013 was the biggest one. in the interim, there is lots of chemical weapons attacks. nothing like this one again four years later. which is a nerve gas. there are options that are being suggested for a punitive limited measure taken against assad. not a regime change. not invasion. taking out airfields and disabling the plans. they are the only ones who fly those planes and drop this stuff. israel has conducted its options

when they are threatened by assad during the war. other people believe unless some punitive measure is taken, this will happen again. >> theis there a sense the international leaders have spoken out in uk and france and israel and they will come out and do something this time? >> we don't know. we see the president of the united states was very moved and angry and announced himself changed. he put down a marker. when the president says this crosses way beyond a red line. when the president of the united states says that, the rest of the world listens. they watch. they want to know what? if this is not followed up, it will give a worse signal because it happened again. the original 2013 line was not followed up. it is true the rest of the world hasn't wanted to intervene in the war since it started seven years ago. you can imagine the headlines

across the world and world leaders in europe and elsewhere are strong in the condemnation and suggesting something might happen. >> russia seems to have just had a little bit of change in position? originally they were towing tei assad line. now they have a statement this is a horrific attack. this is a terrible thing that happened. if you are going to do air strikes, they have capable jet fighters. they have to be on the same page. >> all of that is absolutely true. the problem, of course, is it is massively complicated since russia occupied the vacuum left by the international community. yes, that does make it complicated. there will be claims and

counterclaims. we have seen this before. russia desperately backing assad. the rest of the world wanting to do something, but saying we can't because this is the status quo. however, there is a way, experts say and military experts say of just the u.s. and allies potentially taking a limit punitive attack. first started by getting proof this was by assad and getting consensus among the allies to do something and avoiding russia's area or infrastructure or military. >> thank you very much for giving us all of that context. nice to talk to you as always. another story to report on this morning shaking up the media world and beyond. advertisers are pulling out but president trump entering the o'reilly fray defending his friend. saying he is a good man. how does this figure into the sexual harassment scandal?

next.

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the world's best golfers set to tee off for round one of the

masters. andy scholes has more in the bleacher report. >> good morning, alisyn. dustin johnson is the number one golfer in the world. he may not compete because of a back injury. johnson fell down some stairs and landed on his back at his rental home yesterday. his manager said he is receiving treatment. his status up in the air for the masters. the good news for johnson is that he is in the very last group to tee off today. he will get going if he plays at 2:00 eastern. for the first time ever, the par 3 contest was canceled yesterday. severe storms wreaking havoc. it will be very windy. they are expecting gusts approaching 40 miles an hour. chris, i would not expect to see a lot of scores in round one. a lot of guys trying to survive the conditions. >> that's how you win. you have to beat everybody else.

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president trump defending fox news host bill o'reilly against allegations of sexual harassment. he said quote, i think he shouldn't have settled. meaning years ago. i know bill. bill's a good person. i don't think bill did anything wrong. let's discuss with brian stelter and bill carter. great to see you. the president and bill o'reilly are long time friends. they go to baseball games together. they did until trump won. is this shocking that the president would defend his friend? >> on one level, it is shocking. it doesn't seem surprises, but it is shocking to say the

president weighing in on controversy like this coming to the defense of someone who is not receiving much support from anywhere else. >> especially because of his new role. it is one thing to say he is my friend. if he said he didn't do anything wrong, i believe him. this is an awareness month that we're in right now. that was announced by the president and he can't know the truth of the matters asserted. we know he is comfortable with that, bill. he is come foffortable going ou saying i'm proven later. >> he is comfortable with saying someone is a criminal with no evidence. he is saying this guy did nothing wrong. >> the harassment claims. i have seen them go both ways. it is all about credibility. these women don't want to come forward. they think this is what will happen. they will say something happened. they will say you are lying.

they can't prove it. >> the president had 13 women who accused him? he defended roger ailes and said he is a good guy. he does taken believe women when they come forward. >> this is a reminder of the "access hollywood" tape. one woman who is represented by the same attorney. this gets to the ideas of tribalism. viewers love bill o'reilly. they tune in. if they do care, they are still watching o'reilly because he's there guy. president trump benefitted from the same partisan. people heard about the allegations against him. accepted it. they were able to look past it. >> there are a couple of facts i think are important as you all know. i worked at fox for many years. i have no idea whether bill o'reilly is guilty of this or

innocent. he never exhibited any of this to me. i know for certain there was no anonymous hotline. in bill o'reilly's -- >> his defense. no one ever called up the hotline glch hotline. >> hotline that has ever been set up. there was no hotline that anyone was aware of. >> it may have been buried in page 100 for employees. >> that dpe feefeats the purposa hotline. it was the best kept secret in the building. >> alisyn, i had other former fox employees say that. saying what is he talking about? >> it didn't exist. one of bill o'reilly's defense is they need a new defense. >> what would happen if this went to court is one thing. he has to deal with something else. the optics of being the face of fox news.

advertisers stepping out. this is bad for fox. they only have is so many slots to fill. if they don't want their money attached to bill o'reilly, it will hurt them. is that enough to move their big star? >> moving ads around is a short-term dodge. the ad rates for o'reilly is highest on the network. you will lose something eventually in that. the thing is o'reilly is a big figure for them and he is the signature star. the biggest risk for them is not they lose him, but lose viewers who would say you can't cave to them. they always been a give no ground network. if they give ground, they lose something. >> fox does not respond to public pressure, peer pressure. >> when the ratings don't move, it gives you confidence in your corporate position. yes, the advertisers are going. they can come back. if his ratings are flat or higher, i think that will have influence as well.

>> and the effort around them, he helps the shows around him. >> if the ratings say as they are, they have no reason other than public posture they were cleaning house to do what they want. >> what kind of company do they want fox to be? advertisers are speaking out because the big companies are trying to have more social responsibility. >> thank you both very much. to our international view viewers, thank you for watching us. for you, cnn news room is next. for the u.s. viewers, a big meeting between china and the united states. let's get after it. >> these heinous actions by the assad regime cannot be tolerated. >> the world has an obligation to protect the people of syria. >> if russia has the influence in syria it claims to have, we need to